Two upcoming courses from the National Laboratory Training Network (NLTN) will help laboratories prepare for radiological emergencies. Both courses are offered in a teleconferencing format and are free to state, county and city public health laboratories.

"Is Our Laboratory Prepared for a Radiological Public Health Emergency?" will be presented at noon on March 7. It will focus on the fundamentals of radiation measurements of clinical samples. It also will address the technical aspects of laboratory preparedness for a radiological incident with human exposure, during which public health laboratories will assist with the collection, shipment and analysis of clinical samples.

This course will be presented by Robert Jones, Ph.D., branch chief of the Inorganic and Radiation Analytical Toxicology Branch at the CDC's National Center for Environmental Health.

The second course offered at noon on April 11 is "Laboratory Response to a Major Radiological or Nuclear Incident." It will highlight the issues that radiological laboratories will face in a major nuclear or radiological incident and offer guidance to prepare the labs to provide the support needed during them.

John Griggs, Ph.D., will present the course. He is the acting lab director, National Air and Radiation Environmental Laboratory for the Environmental Protection Agency.

Both courses may be registered for online at www.aphl.org/courses/ph. Because registration is for one phone line, only one person per site needs to register. After registration, the site coordinator will be sent the information needed to participate in this call.

Registration deadline is two days before each course. Additional information is available from the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) at teleconference@aphl.org.

NLTN is a training system sponsored by APHL and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Participants who successfully complete each program will be awarded one contact hour by the Professional Acknowledgment for Continuing Education (P.A.C.E.) program of the American Society for Clinical Laboratory Science.